This chapter offers a brief environmental history of modern Sweden. The focus is on identifying factors that can explain the role Sweden took as an early adopter of environmental conservation in the twentieth century and as a promotor of international cooperation and agreements. Environmentalism became a defining feature of civil society, and the political landscape from left to right absorbed environmentalism and climate change as relevant issues. This was propelled by a decisive “environmental turn” in the 1960s, where public intellectuals, artists, authors, and activists nurtured public support. A feature of Sweden’s environmental exceptionalism was “realist sustainability” in a corporatist tradition. The state made environmental reforms, while also protecting wealth-building industry, including extractivist industries central to the highly natural resource-based Swedish economy. Another key factor in the “Stockholm story” was the concentration of power – in politics, industry, organizations, science, and media – in the capital, which also started to cultivate its position in an increasingly globally competitive game where being green was a key component of success.